Fine-art photographer and Nikon Ambassador Vincent Versace believes in giving himself assignments because,
he asserts, it’s an opportunity to experiment,
to learn and to play.

But self-assigned work doesn’t always
mean an elaborate setup. For a recent
project, Versace’s kitchen counter became
the stage for a study of berries, a shoot that
he says embodies architect Ludwig Mies van
der Rohe’s observation that “an interesting
plainness is the most difficult and precious
thing to achieve.” Here’s how he did it.

Work From “Global to Granular”

Depending on the type of photographic work
you’re doing, you’re either solving “global”
problems or “granular” ones, Versace says.

In this case, his was a global problem: how to
get an image of the berries that combined the
tack-sharpness of a wide depth of field with a
soft, creamy fall-off of a shallow depth of field.

Versace turned to focus stacking to solve
the problem. In focus stacking, you take
multiple images with different focus points
and merge them in post to create a single
image that’s completely in focus. In Versace’s